The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) is the largest sanctioning body of motorsports in the United States. The three largest racing series sanctioned by NASCAR are the NEXTEL Cup Series, the Busch Series and the Craftsman Truck Series. It also oversees seven regional series and one local grassroots series. NASCAR sanctions over 1,500 races at over 100 tracks in 38 states, Canada, and Mexico. In 1996, 1997 and 1998 NASCAR also held exhibition races in Japan.
Beginning as regional entertainment in the Southeastern U.S., NASCAR has grown to become the second most popular professional sport in terms of television ratings inside the U.S., ranking behind only the National Football League. Internationally, NASCAR races are broadcast in over 150 countries. It holds 17 of the top 20 attended sporting events in the U.S.1, and has 75 million fans who purchase over $2 billion in annual licensed product sales. These fans are considered the most brand-loyal in all of sports, and as a result, Fortune 500 companies sponsor NASCAR more than any other sport.
NASCAR's headquarters are located in Daytona Beach, Florida, although it also maintains offices in four North Carolina cities: Charlotte, Mooresville, Concord and Conover as well as New York City, Los Angeles, Arkansas, and international offices in Mexico City, Mexico, and Toronto, Canada.
Early History
Many early racing drivers were involved in bootlegging. The runners would modify their cars in order to create a faster, more maneuverable car to evade the police. The next logical step for the owners of these cars was to race them. These races were popular entertainment in the rural South, and they are most closely associated with the Wilkes County region of North Carolina.
Most races in those days were of modified cars, street vehicles which were lightened and reinforced. NASCAR was co-founded by William France Sr., and Ed Otto on February 21, 1948. William France, Sr., had the notion that people would enjoy watching unmodified, "stock" cars racing and promoted a few races before World War II. In 1947, he decided that this racing would not grow without a formal sanctioning organization, standardized rules, a regular schedule, and an organized championship. This led to the formation of NASCAR in 1948. The first NASCAR "Strictly Stock" race ever was held at the Charlotte Speedway in North Carolina on June 19, 1949 (this is not the same speedway as Lowe's Motor Speedway that is near Charlotte). Bill France's Occoneechee Speedway was one of the first two NASCAR tracks to open and is the only track remaining from the inaugural, 1949 season, although it is no longer raceworthy.
Initially the cars were known as the "Strictly Stock" Division and raced with virtually no modifications from the factory models. This division was renamed "Grand National" in 1950. However, over a period of about a dozen years, modifications for both safety and performance were allowed, and by the mid-1960s the vehicles were purpose-built racecars with a stock-appearing body.
Most races were on half-mile to one mile (800 to 1600 m) oval tracks. However, the first "superspeedway" was built in Darlington, South Carolina, in 1950. This track, at 1.38 miles (2.22 km), was wider, faster, and higher-banked than the racers had seen. The famous Daytona, Florida, race used a two mile (3 km) stretch of the beach as one straightaway and the beachfront highway as the other, prior to the construction in 1959 of the Daytona International Speedway, a 2.5 mile (4 km) high-banked track that became the icon of the sport. The track was built on a swamp, so Bill France Sr. was taking a huge risk when he built the track.
Growth of the sport
The sport began to attract more attention through the 1950s as manufacturers realized the opportunity to promote sales through racing. At various times Ford Motor Company (Ford and Mercury), General Motors (Chevrolet and Pontiac), and Chrysler (Dodge, Chrysler, and Plymouth) all supported factory teams, openly and sometimes covertly when they pretended "not to be involved in racing." The teams became full-time jobs for the top drivers and owners. Although stock racing did not have much following outside the Southeast, people like Lee Petty, Curtis Turner, Fireball Roberts, Smokey Yunick, and Junior Johnson became well known within the racing world.
Almost all the races were held in the southeastern U.S., because the economics of traveling with racecars, parts, and mechanics demanded it. Many of the venues were county fairgrounds or local tracks that hosted local racing on Saturday night when the touring stars were not in town. An exception was Riverside Raceway, in Riverside, California; because of the travel distances involved, it traditionally either started the Grand National season or ended it. This was the only time NASCAR came out west, until the opening of Ontario Motor Speedway in 1970, and the only road course NASCAR ran on until the track closed in 1988.
Beginning of the modern era
NASCAR made major changes in its structure in the early 1970s. The top series found sponsorship from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJR) (tobacco companies had been banned from television advertising and were looking for a promotional outlet). The "Winston Cup" became the top competitive series, with a new points system and some significant cash benefits to competing for championship points. The next division down, called Late Model Sportsman, gained the "Grand National" title passed down from the top division and soon found a sponsor in Busch Beer. In the mid-1970s some races began to get partial television coverage, frequently on the ABC sports variety show, Wide World of Sports.
Finally, in 1979, the Daytona 500 became the first stock car race that was nationally televised from flag to flag on CBS. The leaders going into the last lap, Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison, wrecked on the backstretch while dicing for the lead, and Richard Petty passed to win. Immediately, Yarborough, Allison, and Allison's brother Bobby were engaged in a fistfight on national television. This underlined the drama and emotion of the sport and increased its broadcast marketability. Luckily for NASCAR, the race coincided with a major snowstorm along the United States' eastern seaboard, successfully introducing much of the captive audience to the sport.
The beginning of the modern era, which NASCAR defines as 1972, also brought a change in the competitive structure. The purse awarded for championship points accumulated over the course of the season began to be significant. Previously, drivers were mostly concerned about winning individual races. Now, their standing in championship points became an important factor.
The first NASCAR competition held outside of the U.S. was in Canada, where on July 1, 1952, Buddy Shuman won a 200-lap race on a half-mile (800 m) dirt track in Stamford Park, Ontario, near Niagara Falls. On July 18, 1958, Richard Petty made his premiership debut in a race at Toronto at the Canadian National Exhibition Grounds. He completed 55 laps before crashing, while father Lee won the 100-lap feature.
An exhbition race was held in 1988 in Australia, with Neil Bonnett winning. In 1996, NASCAR went to Japan for Suzuka NASCAR Thunder 100 at Suzuka Circuitland in Suzuka City on November 24, 1996. This exhibition (non-points) race was won by Rusty Wallace. Two more exhibition races were held in Japan in 1997 and 1998. On March 6, 2005 the first NASCAR points-paying race outside of the United States since 1958 was held for the NASCAR Busch Series at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez racetrack in Mexico City. The winner of this twisty road course event was defending series champion Martin Truex, Jr.
The NASCAR NEXTEL Cup series is the most popular and most profitable series operated by NASCAR. The Nextel Cup Series is the Major League of Nascar. People often use the name NASCAR interchangeably with NEXTEL Cup, incorrectly. This series is the most documented, has the most famous drivers, and is the most watched and followed by fans and the media.
In 2004, Nextel took over sponsorship of the premier series from Winston, formally (Winston Cup), renaming it the NEXTEL Cup Series. In 2005 Tony Stewart became the first driver to win both the Winston Cup and the NEXTEL Cup championship, although they are the same championship.
Chase for the Cup
In 2004, NASCAR implemented a ten-race playoff system it called the "Chase for the Cup". After 26 races, the top 10 drivers in points (plus any driver within 400 points of the leader who may be outside the top 10) are placed in the "Chase". Eligible drivers' points are elevated to a level mathematically unattainable by anyone outside this field. Points are also bunched together in 5-point increments so the leader is 45 points ahead of 10th place. Race layouts remain the same and points are scored the same way in the final 10 races. Whoever leads in points after the 36th race is declared the NEXTEL Cup champion.
This playoff system was implemented primarily to increase television ratings during the college and National Football League seasons, plus the Major League Baseball pennant race and postseason as well as the outset of the NHL and NBA and to make the points race more competitive. Previously, the champion may have been decided before the last race (or even several races before the end of the season) because it was mathematically impossible for any other driver to gain enough points to overcome him.
Drivers that are not in the "Chase" (not statistically able to win the championship) still compete in the final ten races, with the 11th place finisher receiving a $1 million bonus. Many long-time fans and several veteran drivers have decried the new format but sports media has given the last ten races increased attention than in previous years.
Races and racetracks
NASCAR races are not conducted on identical tracks. Oval tracks vary in length from 0.526 miles (847 m) (Martinsville Speedway) to 2.66 miles (4.28 km) (Talladega Superspeedway). While some tracks are ovals (Bristol Motor Speedway, Dover International Speedway), many are tri-ovals (Kansas Speedway, Michigan International Speedway). Other configurations are quad-oval (Lowe's Motor Speedway, Atlanta Motor Speedway), oval with unequal ends (Darlington Raceway), and triangular (Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania). Courses also differ in degree of banking on the curves, with differences in degree of banking and course length contributing to different top speeds on various courses (New Hampshire International Speedway and Phoenix International Raceway). Two courses (Infineon Raceway and Watkins Glen International) are complex shaped road courses.
Race speeds vary widely based on the track. The fastest track is Talladega Superspeedway where the record race average speed is 188 mph (303 km/h) with the record qualifying lap of 212.809 mph (342.483 km/h) set by Bill Elliott in 1988. The slowest tracks are Infineon Raceway, a road course, with a record race average speed of only 81 mph (130 km/h) and qualifying lap of 99 mph (159 km/h); and Martinsville Speedway, a very short, nearly flat "paper clip" oval, with a record race average speed of 82 mph (132 km/h) and a qualifying lap of only 98 mph (156 km/h). The average speed is figured out based upon the winner's lap speeds throughout the entire races including laps spent under caution.
Generally, tracks with a length of less than one mile (1.6 km) are referred to as "short tracks". Initially tracks of over one mile were referred to as "superspeedways", but many NASCAR venues now are 1.5 miles or 2 miles (2.4 or 3 km) in length. Tracks on today's standards are now considered superspeedways if they are over 2 miles (3 km) in length. Tracks between 1 and 2 miles in length are called "intermediate" tracks.
As a safety measure to reduce speeds at the two high-banked superspeedways (Daytona and Talladega), a restrictor plate must be placed between the carburetor and intake manifold to restrict air and fuel flow and, therefore, power and horsepower. This has reduced speeds at these tracks to the point that higher speeds are now seen at some tracks where restrictor plates are not mandated, specifically Atlanta Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway. While Atlanta is generally considered the fastest track, restrictor plates are not mandated there, in 2004 and 2005 higher qualifying speeds were posted at Texas, earning it the title of the circuit's fastest track. Unrestricted, NASCAR cars produce over 800 horsepower (600 kW) and can run at speeds in excess of 200 MPH (miles per hour). |
